Royal Melbourne Golf Club (West Couse)

Designer: Dr Alister MacKenzie
Course Opened: 1931
Personal Ranking: 2
In Brief: ‘It burns me up that with the billions of dollars spent on course construction in the past fifty years, all the architects together haven’t been able to build another Royal Melbourne.’ Gene Sarazen

Royal Melbourne West is far and away the greatest golf course in Australia, in my opinion of course. It is grand in scale - it's fairways, greens and bunkers - all big and bold. It is also the most enjoyable golf course i have played. Whilst not long, it demands precise approaches to firm and undulating greens. Leaving the ball on the high side of the pin will invariably result in a three putt. It really is a second shot course.

While playing the first hole, one could be forgived for wondering what the fuss is all about. A flat, wide, rather uninteresting golf hole to say the least. But as many of MacKenzie's great courses do, the first hole gives the golfer a chance to warm into the round. Just one solitary bunker can be found on this hole, front right of the green. Perhaps leading the first time golfer into a false sense of security?

The second hole is a reachable par five, dogleg to the left, while the third is a great short par four with a green sloping from front to back. The fourth is a medium length par five, again dog legging to the right. Only the more accomplished golfer will successfully go for the green in two, from a hanging lie.

The real drama on the West Course at Royal Melbourne comes at the fifth hole - a par 3 of 161m. If there is a more natural green site in all of golf, I'm yet to see it. Still to this day, after eight rounds on the West, this hole blows me away everytime! Following the fifth, the golfer could be excused for thinking they have played the best hole in all of golf, that is until they reach the sixth. At 391m, the par four sixth demands the golfer to carry heather and bunkers on the inside of the dogleg. With success, an uphill approach to a treacherous green follows. Leave the ball below the hole!

I could keep writing and marvelling about how good this golf course really is. Rather, i have left it to a great desciption from Darius Oliver's Planet Golf.

Text from Planet Golf:
Much has been written on the qualities of the West Course, but put simply it is the combination of great land, great design and great construction that makes it so special. The timeless strategy of the MacKenzie design is as profound as it is simplistic and based around wide fairways that are playable to the average golfer yet demand those more skilled drive the ball into dangerous corners to get close to the flags. Full of dramatic sandhills and bold contours, the site itself remains one of the finest in golf, its fertile soil and naturally rugged appearance was truly a gift from the golfing gods. Visually, Morcom’s bunkering is spectacular as are his greens, which for decades have consistently provided the purest putting surfaces in the world. Large and beautifully contoured, they are built to accommodate approaches from a number of angles with each progressively more demanding the further the tee shot strays from the perfect line.